1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related generally to an improved data processing system, and in particular to a method, apparatus, and computer program product for managing phone messages. In particular, the present invention is directed to a method, apparatus, and computer program product for generating dynamic voice response messages in a mobile computing device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many mobile computing devices now have baseband processors or transceivers that provide receiver and transmitter operations for wireless communications, such as telephone calls and instant messaging. Wireless communications enabled mobile computing devices include, for example, cellular phones, laptops, tablet computers, and personal digital assistants (PDAs), such as Palm OS® and Windows Mobile® Pocket PC. Among the phone features most often included by a wireless communications provider is a voice mail service.
A voice mail service generally operates by sending a prerecorded message to a caller when a user is unable to answer a phone call. A user may be unable to answer the phone for a number of reasons. For example, the user may be talking to someone else on the phone or may be in a meeting or conference that cannot be disrupted by accepting a phone call. During these circumstances, current voice mail systems send a single prerecorded or default message to all callers. The prerecorded message typically states that the user is unable to answer the phone and asks the caller to leave a message. A caller is then given an opportunity to record a message for the user.
Current voice mail systems are static answering systems. When a user does not answer a call, every caller is connected to the voice mail answering system that sends the same outgoing message to all callers. Although a user can personalize the static prerecorded outgoing message by recording the user's own message, the same static message is sent to all callers.
Current voice mail systems typically permit a user to record a different voice mail message for a no-answer outgoing message as opposed to a busy-signal outgoing message. For example, the same no-answer outgoing message is sent to all callers that are connected to the voice mail system when a call is not answered after a preset number of rings or when a call is diverted to voice mail by a user. Likewise, the same busy-signal outgoing message is sent to all callers that are connected to the voice mail system due to a busy signal on the user's phone. In addition, some message systems send a particular response message to a caller based on the caller's phone number. However, the same static prerecorded message is sent to the caller each time the user is unable to answer the caller's incoming call.